When you are faced with flooding and your experience damage as a result of the water, the damages are covered by homeowner’s insurance. The insurance company may cover for a burst water pipe or any leaking appliance in your home. You will not be covered in case you get damages as a result of flooding due to an overflowing river. However, you can get compensation only if you have a national flood policy from the National Flood Insurance Program.
Making claims for damages caused by water can be very tricky. An example of this is where your home gets flooded as a result since a high wind blew your roof and the rains happen to damage your home. You will be covered for this kind of damage but when there is a storm surge and your property gets damaged, you are on your own.
There are the typical claims that you will be covered by the insurance company. Some of them include burst pipes, overflows from sinks and bathtubs, overflow from washing machines and other appliances and water damages from leaking roofs.
However, there are a lot of loopholes in insurance policies. In a situation where your water pipe got frozen and burst during the night when you were sleeping, you will are covered. But you went for a vacation and left your heat turned off, experts from the insurance company have the right to deny you the claim on the grounds that the accident was a result of negligence and you did not observe the right measures to keep your home safe.
We can further look at a situation where your washing machines overflow and cause damages to your house. The insurance company will pay for the water damages in the building but again they will not pay for the repair of your washing machine.
You may experience damages as a result of a leaking roof and this is covered by homeowners’ insurance. But what they term as roof repair is considered as maintenance issues and the roof itself is not covered. But there are some exceptions when the leakage was as a result of a hailstorm, strong winds or a fallen tree.
There are common water damages that are not covered in a standard homeowner’s insurance policy. These include; sewer backups, water seepage and flooding from overflowing river. You will need to buy a national flooding policy from the federal government if you want to be covered from flooding caused by natural disasters such as flash floods, tidal surges and overflows from lakes or rivers. Many people are reluctant to get such a policy since they believe it’s only important for people that live in areas prone to flooding but they need to understand that flooding can still happen at areas that are outside these recognized zones.
Generally speaking, water damage claims are very complex. There are professional water damage and restoration experts that deal with cleaning up any mess following flooding to repairing any damage that could arise. You can always outsource for their services.
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